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Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Here is Tim Hildebrandt's "The Chronicler's." I can't write much more, as I've been spending some time on some much needed gaming projects. I'm taking a short break from "The Black Book of Faust" since it seems that +James Raggi has a ton on his plate at the moment with the various crowdfunded projects that have recently been released, plus those modules that are still coming. I'll take my time with that one and make it great before I get it off to him so he can give it a proper look over, and I can be satisfied with my work. Until I get back to that, I have a dungeon that I've been wanting to put back together for a while and publish. I'm also working on that series of blogs about alignment that I mentioned last week. There's also something that I work on every once and a while that I've recently added to. It's primarily a collection of house rules and ideas that I play around with. I've been thinking about maybe polishing it up and trying to publish it. Now, I think we have enough clones out there to keep us busy for a while, so I don't want this to be it's own game. Rather I would like to get it written up as a set of modular rules that can plug into any clone (possibly even some modern games.) I see it as something universal that should work with any system based off of D&D. In fact, as certain project that I was excited about way back here has been rolled into it. The encumbrance rules themselves would have not made for the greatest reading on their own merit. The working title at present that I'm saving all of these files in is "Goldenrod." Well, I have to get back to work, enjoy!

Thursday, February 20, 2014

So, I took this alignment test, which I believe to have been around for a few years now. Interesting results. The link to take the quiz is at the bottom of my results. It has me thinking about doing a series of posts analyzing alignment and what it "means."

True Neutral (with slight tendencies toward another alignment)

1 chaos, -5 evil and 14 balance!

..."Do the math." -- a mathematician ......Your alignment is True Neutral and you should refer to the score write-up for True Neutral (in the list of "all possible test results" at the bottom of the page) to learn more. However, you also scored a little bit of another alignment, which you can also look up in the test results, once you determine which alignment it is....This score is rare, but it does come up sometimes. My test is very accurate but it's not perfect. There are "blind spots" in between the alignments, where the scores are not high or low enough to push you one way or another. You scored a large percentage in True Neutral and a small percentage in another alignment. To determine this other alignment, check your chaos / evil scores above, and consult the following chart (keep in mind that a score might be positive ornegative, so watch for the little minus signs) ... .........................................................chaosscore of : 5, 6, or 7evil score of : 5, 6, or 7you tend toward Chaotic Evil.........................................................chaosscore of : 5, 6, or 7evil score of : - 4, - 3, - 2, - 1, 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4you tend toward Chaotic Neutral.........................................................chaosscore of : 5, 6, or 7evil score of : - 7, - 6, or - 5you tend toward Chaotic Good.........................................................chaosscore of : - 4, - 3, - 2, - 1, 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4evil score of : - 7, - 6, or - 5 you tend toward Neutral Good.........................................................chaosscore of : - 7, - 6, or - 5evil score of : - 7, - 6, or - 5you tend toward Lawful Good.........................................................chaosscore of : - 7, - 6, or - 5evil score of : - 4, - 3, - 2, - 1, 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4you tend toward Lawful Neutral .........................................................chaosscore of : - 7, - 6, or - 5evil score of : 5, 6, or 7you tend toward Lawful Evil.........................................................chaosscore of : - 4, - 3, - 2, - 1, 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4evil score of : 5, 6, or 7you tend toward Neutral Evil.........................................................The reason you didn't actually score the alignment in question is because you only TEND toward that alignment ... you agree with some aspects of that alignment, and disagree with other aspects of it. So while the alignment does apply to you (to some extent), it's more of a subconscious tendency than a conscious belief system. You might continue to drift toward the other alignment and eventually leave neutrality altogether (the subjective path) ... or you might have started as the other alignment and have become more neutral over time (the objective path). Either way, this score suggests being in transition -- you are either going toward or away from true neutrality. Such changes tend to be gradual and can take weeks, months, even years. But eventually you'll end up as one or the other. It's up to you to figure out which direction you're going in. ...

Thursday, February 13, 2014

This Blog (not really) brought to you by the "So You Want To Be An OSR Superstar?" competition, hosted by Tenkar's Tavern. You can learn more about this contest here. Needless to say I have a couple of submissions in already.

My celebration day for the 40th Anniversary of D&D and RPG's went off pretty well a couple weeks back. Man, I really meant to write about this sooner. Anyway, we managed to get two games in at Warriors 3 Comics & Games. +Shane Harsch and +James DeYonke both managed to make it out, along with several of my good friends and a few new ones as well.

The first game was mine, in which I ran Tomb of Horrors using OD&D. It went off well, if not deadly enough. I had fun with it, but I think it's time to retire that old standby for a bit. Many people that play when I run it have played before, so it becomes less lethal. Other folks that come to play for the first time are aware of the module's reputation, and so are equally cautious. Either way, we all had fun playing, I believe, even if we only had one fatality, and one character get warped back to the beginning of the dungeon, nude and lacking equipment.

The evening game was run by Shane, who twisted things up a bit. He ran Ghost Tower of Inverness, but not on any form of D&D or clone. He converted the module over to FATE. I, of course played in this one and had a pretty damned good time. There was a lot in that module that I had forgotten about. I'll tell you one thing, while it was recognizable, it was definitely different playing with a system that wasn't some form of D&D. It made the whole experience a bit fresh. It was also nice, as I have been meaning to test drive FATE for some time now. That said, I want to try the system in genre's other than D&D style fantasy. From what I saw of it, I think it would shine in either a modern scenario or a sci-fi game.

Rambling here. Next up, once a month, as I believe I mentioned here, I will be playing in my good friend Jon's Numenera campaign. Well, I started thinking, and thought of a good solution to a problem that I have. See I've been itching to run a game that is a mash up of the things I dig about multiple D&Ds and Clones. I've primarily wanted it to be a take on AD&D 1st and 2nd mashed up and houseruled with rules that I love from some of my favorite clones. Well, I haven't wanted to eat into my regular Friday C&C game, because that campaign is coming along splendidly and everyone seems to have a great time when we play. However, I'm also playing/running too many "once a month" games to justify taking up another evening.

Solution? Jon's game will always take place at a time that I can be there (meaning that my daughter is either with her mother or being watched by someone else for that particular day.) That said I put my feelers out to see if anyone would be interested in an afternoon game on that same day every month. The verdict? I have a once a month group that is totaling 7 - 9 players! We will be using 2nd Edition options to create characters, but the game play itself will be more along the lines of 1st Edition. I believe that more than half of the current group have never played either incarnation of Advanced, so it should be a fun experience.

I've made the decision that this campaign will take place in the same world as my C&C "Lost Lands" campaign, but begin in a different region. The players will, when in civilization, be able to here news about what is going on in Bard's Gate and the surrounding regions in the regular Friday night game. That makes this an extension (or part of?) the weekly campaign, I suppose. Same campaign different systems? I'll have to contemplate this on the Tree of Woe. Anyway, this Saturday marks the first session (and also happens to be my birthday, so that's a pretty alright gift.) We will be creating characters and, time permitting, running a short tutorial adventure. This session will bring the characters to the true starting point of the campaign: Saltmarsh.

It is my intention to use several old modules for this campaign. Low level will start with the "U" series. After that, we'll see what the players want to do versus which mods I intend to send them towards. All of that said, I want to give these players a good and open experience without railroading them into anything I want to play. I think with this being once a month, I'll actually be able to re-cap here. I look forward to it.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

I've been focusing a bit on the fantasy end of the Hildebrandt Brothers' careers lately. Probably has to do with the amount of fantasy gaming I've been getting in. And now for something completely different...